Rescuing Rayne (11 page)

R
ayne smiled
at the group chitchatting behind her in the bus. They’d landed in Cairo and the flight crew was sharing a bus from the airport to one of the nicer touristy hotels nearby. She enjoyed flying with the same group of flight attendants for several shifts. It made the work easier, and time went by faster.

There were four couples on the bus with them, discussing their plans for the next day. Apparently, they were going to spend a few days in the capital city before heading off to see the “famous” Egyptian pyramids.

“Hey, any of you guys want to come with us?”

The question was asked by a heavyset Hispanic woman. She was with her husband and they’d held hands for what seemed like the entire flight, and even after they’d deplaned, Rayne noticed that the large man seemed extra protective of his wife and kept her hand in his as much as possible. It reminded her of how Ghost had been with her, although she tried to push the memory aside.

Rayne turned around in her seat and asked, “Pardon?”

“I asked if you wanted to come with us tomorrow. We set up a private tour thingie and the max number of people is ten, but we only have eight. The price is really reasonable and we’ll get to see a lot of great stuff…Giza pyramids, Sphinx, the Egyptian Museum, and we’ll end up in Tahrir Square and will get a tour of The Mogamma government building.”

“What’s the deal with the square? Isn’t it just a big downtown area?” Rayne asked.

The woman, obviously excited about the topic, exclaimed, “Oh no! There’s so much more than a traffic circle and random buildings. It’s where the country gathered to protest Hosni Mubarak’s rule. There were probably a quarter of a million people in the square demanding his resignation. And it worked! Then a few years after that, it’s where there was a revolt about the new president, once again demanding his resignation. It’s all just fascinating and it’ll be so cool to be standing where history was made!”

The pilot, copilot, and three of the other flight attendants all declined politely, but Rayne thought this might be just the thing she needed to get out of the doldrums. Going with a group to see the city was perfect. Safety in numbers and all that.

She turned to Sarah, one of the newer flight attendants who she’d flown with over the last week and a half or so. “Wanna go? We have tomorrow off.”

Sarah shrugged and agreed. “Sure, why not?”

“Very cool!” the Hispanic woman cried excitedly. “My name is Diana. This is my husband Eduardo. We’re from Houston. Sitting in the back is Paula and her boyfriend, Leon, then there’s Becky and Michael, and finally Tracy and Steve. We all know each other from Houston, we go to the same church. We’ve always wanted to see the Great Pyramids, and finally we just bit the bullet and decided to go for it.”

Rayne smiled politely at each of the couples and turned back to Diana. “So what are the details?”

“Tomorrow we’re meeting in the lobby around nine. We’ll be picked up and should get back to the hotel around three. It’s only six hours, but we’ll see as much of the city as we can in that time. It’s so cool you’re coming with us!”

They discussed price for a bit and as the bus was pulling up to the hotel, Diana exclaimed, “This is gonna be epic! See you in the morning!”

“She’s a bit enthusiastic, huh?” Sarah mentioned dryly as they collected their bags and headed into the hotel lobby.

“Yeah, but that’s better than not caring. Did you see that other couple? All they did was scowl at each other,” Rayne commented with a laugh.

“True. As much as I want to see the city, I’m beginning to wonder if we’d be better off on our own.”

“Nah, it’ll be fine. How bad can it be?”

“
O
h my God
, could this get any worse?” Sarah asked under her breath as they watched Michael berate the tour driver.

The morning had started off well enough. They’d all met in the lobby at precisely nine in the morning and had met their driver, Hamadi. He had a minivan that they somehow all managed to squeeze into. It was a tight fit, but it
was
Egypt, after all. It’s how everyone traveled.

They spent the morning looking at the pyramids of Giza…they weren’t
the
pyramids, but they were still very cool. Rayne hadn’t ever thought she’d see a real-life Sphinx either. They took a ton of pictures and then spent a couple of hours at the Egyptian Museum. Then they wandered around the square Diana had been so excited to tour.

Now they were at The Mogamma government building. It didn’t look like much to Rayne, but she was going with it. After the walk through the large square surrounding the building, they were now waiting in line with hundreds of other tourists for their chance to tour the inside of the massive government building.

They were all tired, and a bit hungry, but Michael and Becky weren’t dealing well at all with the circumstances.

“I hope you don’t expect us to tip you after all this. I thought we had an exclusive tour? How long are we going to have to wait in this line? It doesn’t look exclusive to me!” Michael raged. “Standing out here in the sun—baking. Ridiculous!”

Rayne looked at the driver. He’d been very patient, and Rayne even thought he’d done a wonderful job in maneuvering the van around the crazy traffic in the city, but she hadn’t heard one positive word out of either of the couple all day.

“Don’t mind him,” Rayne said softly to Hamadi, turning her back to Michael. “You’ve done an amazing job today. I don’t think I would’ve ever seen so many cool things if we were on a regular tour. Thank you.”

The man smiled briefly at her, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Karma will take care of him,” he said to Rayne seriously, if a bit dramatically, then turned to the group in general. “I have the tickets, but we have to wait in the line for security to get inside. Once we’re in, we will break off and have our exclusive tour of the beautiful building.”

“That sounds lovely,” Paula said. She’d been the peacemaker the entire trip, trying to keep Michael’s bad mood from spreading to the rest of the group. “I can’t wait to see inside.”

“I still say this is bullshit,” Michael huffed. “What could they possibly be looking for anyway?”

Sarah leaned over and whispered to Rayne, “How about guns, knives and bombs? What an idiot.”

Rayne smothered the laugh that wanted to come out and looked at the ground, trying to regain her composure. There was always one in every group. One person or couple that was stuck up and spoiled and just didn’t understand cultures different from their own. She had no idea how they were even friends of Diana’s and the other couples. They were all laid-back and sweet, and Michael and Becky just didn’t seem to mesh with anyone.

Rayne thought of Ghost for the thousandth time that day. She tried not to, she really did, but she couldn’t help it. When Michael had berated Hamadi in earshot of everyone around them, she
knew
Ghost wouldn’t have stood for it. He would’ve ripped the guy a new asshole and made it look easy in the process.

Ghost would’ve made her feel safer. Cairo wasn’t horribly unsafe, as she’d argued with her brother, but Rayne felt uneasy nevertheless. His words, that it wasn’t the best place to be walking around, kept rattling around in her head. She felt better being in the group with the guide, but there were times she’d looked around after being dropped off to see a certain site when she’d observed their guide talking with other men in out-of-the way corners.

He didn’t do anything really to make her feel uneasy, but she felt uneasy all the same. He was allowed to talk to his friends when they were touring the various landmarks, but every now and then she’d catch a look on his face that wasn’t that of the easygoing guide he’d tried to show to them all day. Somehow Rayne knew Ghost would’ve made her feel better, told her she was imagining her unease. Or even told her she wasn’t making it up, and he’d take her by the hand and take them back to the hotel so they could—

She cut her thought off before she could finish it. Dammit, she was supposed to be getting over Ghost. Going on this tour today was supposed to be the first step in doing so…unfortunately all it was doing was making her miss him more. It had been a mistake, and Rayne could only hope they’d get through the tour of the government building quickly. Her bed back at the hotel was calling her name. She had a book to read and a person to forget.

They finally made it to the front of the line and all of them went through security with no issues, except for Steve. He had a small knife in his pocket that had been confiscated. He wasn’t happy it had been taken from him, but he’d acted with maturity and hadn’t pitched a fit as they all knew Michael would’ve if it had been
his
knife that had been taken away.

Rayne thought about the hair clip she was wearing. Chase had given it to her last Christmas and at the time, she’d just laughed at him, but she’d been wearing it every day nonetheless. It was a simple design, but it was touted on the package as the Swiss Army Knife of barrettes.

There were three screwdrivers hidden on it, including a Phillips head, and a larger and smaller flat head as well. There was a hole that could work as a small 8mm wrench, one side was marked to use as a ruler, but the last two features were the most important to Chase. One side of the barrette actually had a serrated edge. It wouldn’t cut through anything terribly thick, but if someone was determined enough, it probably could do some damage. And the last feature—which, as Chase had pointed out, the manufacturers probably hadn’t even thought of, or at least wouldn’t advertise—was that the point of the barrette could be used as either a pick or some sort of weapon in a pinch. Chase had told Rayne to go for an attacker’s eyes if she ever had to use it to defend herself. That should give her enough time to run like hell. He’d told her to never stay and fight if she could run.

Not once had the hair clip been looked at twice at any of the security checkpoints she’d ever been through. That probably should’ve made Rayne nervous, but she was happy to have the added protection and peace of mind that it gave her. Not that she was some kind of James Bond by any stretch, but if push came to shove, she just might be able to use it to help herself get out of a situation.

Just as Hamadi said, after they got through security they were met by another man who led them off in a different direction than the rest of the tourists standing around them. Hamadi said he’d meet them at the end of the tour and disappeared into the throngs of tourists waiting for their tours. Their new guide spoke heavily accented English, which Rayne could barely understand. She was more than ready to be done for the day. She was tired and hot, and honestly, touring a government building wasn’t high on her list of things she wanted to do.

The new guide led them through one room after another, explaining the purposes of the rooms and talking about some of the art on the walls. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the Egyptian man guided them into a room that had no windows and not a lot of furniture. It had high ceilings and ornate carvings on the walls.

“Wait here,” he ordered, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. “I be back.”

Before anyone could say anything—rather, before
Michael
could complain about it the same way he’d been bitching about everything else—the man was gone. He’d exited through one of the three doors and the sound of it shutting behind him echoed through the sparsely decorated room. There was an uncomfortable-looking short sofa covered in fake fur and two wooden chairs that looked, if they were actually used, as if they’d collapse under the person sitting on them. A large brown rectangular-shaped rug with tassels all the way around it was on the floor. It was the type of furniture one would expect to see in a museum, not a functioning governmental building.

“Michael, I’m tired. This is boring. I thought we were going to get to see thrones and jewels and stuff. This sucks.”

Rayne sighed inaudibly. She’d thought the tour was going to be more exciting than it was as well, but she wasn’t going to bitch about it as Becky was.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find Hamadi and tell him to take us back to the van. It’s almost two-thirty anyway, we can cut the tour short I’m sure,” Michael told Becky, not even asking the rest of the group if that was okay with them.

He walked to the door the guide had gone through and tugged on the knob. It didn’t turn in his grasp. Michael turned with confusion to the group. “That’s weird. It seems to be locked.”

“Are you sure?” Sarah asked. “Maybe it’s just stuck or something.”

Michael tugged harder at the door. It still didn’t budge.

Leon, a tall gentleman in his sixties, with hair as white as the clouds that had been wisping in the sky outside, went to one of the other doors in the room. He tried the knob, and it was obvious that it was also locked.

Clearly more than a little alarmed, Steve hurried to the door they’d used to enter the room, and found that it too was locked. Everyone stood for a moment looking at each other in confusion.

“I’m sure Hamadi will be here soon. I mean, we’re on an official tour. They can’t leave us locked in this room forever,” Tracy said with complete confidence.

“This is total bullshit!” Michael seethed, kicking the door their guide had disappeared through. “I can’t
wait
to hear his explanation for this goatscrew.”

As much as Rayne disliked Michael, she had to agree with him on this one. It didn’t make any sense, but there wasn’t anything they could do other than wait.

Thirty minutes went by, then an hour. Rayne had wandered over to one of the walls and sat down against it, curling her arms around her up-drawn legs while they waited. Sarah had sat down next to her.

Leon and Paula were sitting on the sofa. Since they were the oldest of the group, everyone agreed they should have what little comfort it allowed. Paula was crying softly as Leon tried to comfort her. Tracy and Steve were sitting with their backs against the opposite wall, as they too waited for Hamadi to arrive.

Michael had paced the room for a while, ranting and raving about asshole Egyptians, which didn’t make sense as almost all of the men and women they’d met on their tour had been very polite and accommodating. He’d even banged on each of the doors and yelled at the top of his lungs, trying to get someone to come and let them out…with no luck. Becky had been pissed at first as well, but as time went on, it was obvious she was getting scared…as scared as the rest of them.